Lion's Lair: A Zodiac Shifters Paranormal Romance: Leo (Wylde Magick Book 2)

by Ann Gimpel

  She swallowed back bile. What the fuck had happened to her toughness? She’d never been one to shy away from doing hard things.

  Yeah, but this is worse than anything I’ve ever had to do by a factor of ten.

  Renee switched to breathing through her mouth. She kept her magic flowing until Jeremiah shouted. “It’s enough. Hurry.” She stumbled back the way she’d come. Smoke shrouded the ley lines, and they glowed a sickly red behind its ashy coating.

  Gasping and panting, she joined the group as all of them stumbled from the cave and onto a small patch of ground between its maw and the river. Black smoke rolled from the cave’s entrance, along with the meaty smells of roasting flesh.

  The bile she’d swallowed time and again erupted, and she bent to puke as her stomach emptied itself of a dinner she barely remembered eating. Above the stench of mage fire stripping flesh from bone, another smell intruded.

  One she knew far too well.

  “Vampires!” she shouted just as Jeremiah staggered from the cave.

  “Leave,” he cried. “We’ll regroup in Golddust.”

  An image of the ghost town blasted into her head. Magic bubbled as mages and shifters beat a retreat. She waited, but Jeremiah’s form didn’t waver. She ran to him and gripped his arm. “Come on. We have to go too. They’ll be here in seconds.”

  Her answer was a roar blasting from his throat. “I’m staying long enough to kill those fuckers. Because of them, I murdered my kinfolk.” He turned on her, blue eyes blazing with hatred. “Do you understand? I murdered my kin. Mowed them down in cold blood. I demand revenge.”

  She wanted to tell him he was a courageous fool, that his bravery humbled her, but this was no place for emotion. Instead, she said, “Remaining is a death sentence, but I’ll be damned if I leave you by yourself.”

  He shook out of her grasp. “Not your fight. Leave. Meet the others in Golddust. Tell them I’ll be along presently.”

  “It is my fight. This touches every magic wielder.”

  Before she could launch more arguments, clothing shredded, falling around him in rough strips. The air glistened, hot and viscous with the unique aspect of Jeremiah’s power—until the cave lion emerged. And then, power burned brighter still.

  Damn. The beast was even bigger than she remembered.

  She stood straight. Vampires were almost upon them, their characteristic rotten-meat stench dense and cloying. “I’m not leaving you,” she announced and summoned shift magic. The eagle jumped to her call faster than she’d ever known it to.

  Wings spread, she rose into the smoky air, shrieking a battle cry. How the hell they’d deal with vampires remained to be seen. No iron blades in sight, but it didn’t seem to worry Jeremiah. With a shock, she realized she was coming to trust him.

  A black portal edged with red flames formed below. Vampires surged through. Six of them. Not bad. She’d dealt with four, and she wasn’t alone anymore.

  “How dare you? Those mages were ours. Ours!” The vamp in the lead shook a fist at the cave lion. Robes of dark-green silk billowed around him. Black hair shot with silver fell to waist level, and his handsome face was screwed into a furious expression. Silver eyes rimmed with red narrowed to slits, and power blazed from his hands in mini lightning bolts.

  So far, the vamps were focused on the lion. Did they even see her? If they did, did they realize she was more than just one more eagle on the hunt for prey?

  Renee kicked herself. If this morning hadn’t happened, she might pull off her “one more eagle” ploy, but they had the feel of her, the scent of her. These weren’t the same batch as this morning, but they had ways of communicating. Once they noticed her, they’d pull a similar stunt and force her out of the sky.

  She couldn’t afford to let that happen, and she hastily constructed an invisibility spell. They were hit-or-miss affairs when she was in bird form. It was damned near impossible to shroud every part of herself because flight was a dynamic process, and she was always on the move. Best she could hope for was to construct a 3D rectangle and remain within it.

  The lion roared and roared again before it surged forward, aiming for the fist-shaking vampire. Understanding full well it was under attack, the vampire turned the full force of his gaze on the lion, chanting in a singsong voice.

  Renee had been watching so closely, she overflew her protective spell and pulled a wingtip back to where it couldn’t be seen. She’d heard about vampire mind control but hadn’t seen it in action. The crew this morning had been toying with her. If they’d been serious about hypnotizing her, the outcome might have been far different.

  Would the vamp chanting below nab her too?

  Did the fact she and Jeremiah were together—like it said in the lore books—confer any added protection at all?

  “Yes,” the eagle answered her unspoken question, and then added, “The coercion spell isn’t aimed at us. Not yet, but we must be ready.”

  Interesting. The spells were target-specific. What would that mean for Jeremiah? Would he be strong enough to resist?

  Seemingly oblivious to the vampire’s spell, the lion took a running leap and launched itself at the vampire. Closing its jaws around the abomination’s neck, it bit clean through. Two more chomps, and the vampire’s head rolled in the dust. Blood sprayed, coating the lion with black and red ichor. It shook free of the vampire and leapt on the next nearest one, repeating its actions.

  The beast was so large, the vampire’s neck fit easily within its mouth. This vamp only took two bites to dispatch. Renee wanted to cheer. She also wanted to help, but the lion was doing fine without her.

  The other four vampires, two with black hair, one blond, and one russet-haired one screamed their ire. Their voices were harsh, like rusty metal grating against itself, and they spoke a language she’d never heard. They rushed the lion, two from each side, and glommed onto its flanks and neck with their fangs.

  The lion roared loud enough to shake the earth, but it couldn’t dislodge the vampires. It rolled, but the vamps still didn’t let go. Horror shot through her. She’d thought the lion invincible, but something was wrong.

  She had to help.

  “Time to fight.” The eagle’s words solidified her resolve.

  She flew from her hiding place straight for the nearest vampire. It was sluggish, lost in a feeding haze, so it didn’t notice her until she drove her beak into one eye. It let go of the lion long enough to shriek. She pivoted and put out his other eye. The vamp would recover, but not anytime soon.

  Meanwhile, he was blind. It had to slow him down.

  Renee wheeled away from his hands pawing the air as he tried to catch her. The next vampire was just as lost in bloodlust as his buddy had been. The blind one screeched something she assumed was a warning, but she didn’t hesitate. Her beak drove straight and true, right through the next vampire’s eye and on into whatever it had for brains.

  It regrouped faster than the first one and closed a hand over her body. Undeterred, she took advantage of him holding onto her and jammed her beak into his other eye. He tightened his hold, intent on destroying her. Desperate to escape, she pecked his face, hitting every nerve she could think of. When she plunged her beak into his ear, he let go, shrieking in agony.

  If she’d been human, she’d have laughed. Nothing like decimating an eardrum to create red-hot agony. She flapped higher into the air, beyond reach of the other two. The ones who could still see.

  They were still latched onto the lion, but with only two to deal with, the beast lurched upright and headed right into the river flowing at flood stage. The blind vamps still squealed with pain, but they shambled after the lion. Because they couldn’t see, the current caught them, hurtling them downstream. One’s robes caught on a snag sticking into the river. For a heart-stopping moment, she was afraid it would save him, but the branch snapped under his weight, and he raced after the other vampire, straight for the falls.

  Four down. Two to go.

  The lion swam a
gainst the current, holding its position in a spot that forced both vampires against sharp rocks. The lion had far more mass than both vamps together, and it held them underwater where the roiling cascade pounded their bodies into lethal rocks.

  Renee flew in tight circles overhead, cawing. Vampires didn’t need to breathe, but their flesh was being shredded against the rocks. Surely, they’d let go. The water above them turned sludgy, filled with red and black streamers from their disintegrating bodies. At least the fast rushing water cut their stench a little.

  First one and then the other swept by her, carried downstream by the vicious current. She waited, expecting the lion to lumber out of the water, but it just stood there.

  “What’s wrong?” she shouted.

  It didn’t answer. Neither did Jeremiah.

  “Come on,” she urged. “We have to leave.” She didn’t bother adding more vamps would show up. They were like a cancer, malignant and ubiquitous.

  With her worry escalating to panic, Renee gathered magic into a travel spell. Draping it around all of them, she unleashed her casting, holding an image of Golddust front and center. “Hang on,” she told Jeremiah. “Once we’re out of here, I’ll figure out what’s going on and fix it.”

  Her spell was lethargic, slow to take hold, but they weren’t going all that far. She directed her power, pulling it back when it slopped over the edges. Just when she was starting to fear she’d made a mistake, picked the wrong location, the black surrounding them developed a grayish tint.

  “It’s okay. We’re almost there.” She used her best soothing voice, the one she employed for sick patients.

  A weak snarl yielded to Jeremiah’s voice. “Where?”

  “Golddust. Where else?”

  “Aw shit. I have to shift.”

  Anger simmered, displacing compassion. “You will do no such thing until I determine what those bastards did to you. Christ on a cracker, are you still ashamed of being a shifter?”

  The lion roared louder.

  Good, she thought. Nothing like a proud bondmate to whip a shifter into shape.

  “Never was ashamed.” His voice was thin, broken. “Hard day for my people. Seeing me like this will be one more shock.”

  She took a breath and blew it out, clacking her beak. “Don’t you get it, yet? From now on, we’re the same people. No more mine and yours. Have faith. The mages in Golddust will rally behind you once they know what you did. The shifters sure as hell will.”

  She brought them out on Golddust’s rocky main street just as dawn was breaking. The lion was on his feet. Barely. His head hung low, and his breathing was labored. Everyone ran to them, forming a tight circle. Renee summoned shift magic. She needed her human form to assess Jeremiah’s injuries. Cold from the sub-freezing morning attacked her nakedness. She ignored it.

  Please. Let it only be blood loss, she prayed and directed magic into scanning the lion. Why was it so listless? Bond animals never got sick.

  “Who’s with you?” Johnny asked, dark eyes wide with wonder.

  Chloe strode forward. “It’s Jeremiah. My brother. He’s hurt, but Renee brought him back to us.” Chloe wrapped her arms as far around the cave lion’s neck as she could and buried her face in its ruff. The beast mewled as if it was in terrible pain and pitched onto its side in the dirt with Chloe on top of it.

  Niall joined Renee, sending his own magic cascading through the lion. He cursed in Gaelic, but she’d already figured it out. “How could this be?” she screamed.

  “Ye ran afoul of master vampires,” Niall said. “Their poison is eroding the lion’s magic, its link to the animals’ special world.”

  Chloe raised a tearstained face. “You have to save Jeremiah. And his lion.”

  “Give us room to work.” Renee didn’t recognize the grim voice as hers. Nor did she bother to inform Chloe that her brother’s fate was inextricably linked with the lion’s. Power flared as Niall shared his magical center with her.

  “Take what ye need,” he said gruffly.

  “Thanks.” Honing power into a laser-sharp blade, she carved a series of slashes through the lion’s thick hide. She tasted blood from biting through her lower lip but kept right on slicing incisions. At first nothing happened, but then a viscous black fluid oozed from the slits. It stank of vampire.

  “Good job,” Niall said. “I’ll do the next set.”

  She was panting from effort, no longer cold despite her nakedness. “Cut here.” She pointed.

  “Aye.” Niall repeated her actions. “And here as well?”

  “Yes.” Once these drain, we’ll assess what we have.”

  Voices rose and fell around her, but she didn’t care what the mages thought. If any of them said one negative word about Jeremiah or his cave lion, she’d rip them to shreds.

  Chapter 9

  Earlier at the Cave:

  Jeremiah funneled as much power as he could to his bondmate. Something had happened to the lion when the vampires were feeding from it. Something bad, but he wasn’t sure what it was or how to fix it. They’d defeated the vamps with Renee’s help, but now the lion stood in the river, not moving. It was wedged between boulders, but its grip on the rock-littered bottom wasn’t all that strong. Jeremiah was afraid they’d be swept over the falls if the beast didn’t lumber out of the fast-running torrent.

  He tried to shift, so he could move them back onto dry ground, but his attempt was laughable. Things grew hazy after that, maybe because his magic was down to bedrock, but Renee got them out of there somehow. He came back to himself, kind of, when they were close to Golddust. He still wanted to shift, but she dressed him down.

  Maybe she was right, but this wasn’t the way he wanted his kinsmen to find out about the lion. He wanted them to accept his new status, not be horrified by it.

  Hell, he probably didn’t have enough magic left to shift anyway.

  Renee was amazing. He tried to tell her but couldn’t get a grasp on enough of anything to power telepathy. She was brave, resourceful. She’d stuck by him after he told her to leave. And she’d saved him. He wasn’t under any illusions. Without her aid, he and the lion would still be in the river—or pitched up on rocks at the bottom of the falls. More vampires would show up. Once it happened, he’d be dead—or worse, turned. The lion could return to the animals’ world…

  Maybe not. If it could leave, why hadn’t it? He tried to ask, but the beast didn’t answer.

  Something wasn’t right. His thoughts were all over the map, his normally incisive mental ability absent. Maybe he needed to be back in his own body, but he didn’t have enough magic left to light a match, let alone shift. The lion was…different. It had moved from an active entity sharing his consciousness to an inert lump.

  Did bond animals do that?

  He wished he knew more, but it was like wishing for… For what? He couldn’t think. Consciousness was elusive. Remaining awake was important, though he wasn’t certain how he knew that. Yet if he didn’t stay on top of it, he felt himself slipping down a long, meandering tunnel. Lights flickered, welcoming lights. He wanted to reach for them, go to them, but then he dragged himself back.

  The lion fell over with a thud that rattled him. What was happening?

  Stay centered. Stay focused.

  But he was tired, so tired. Pain lanced across his ribs. He struggled weakly but was trapped in the lion’s body. Its pain was his pain. No escape. More cuts followed until he lost count.

  He screamed, the sound absorbed by the lion’s presence.

  Pressure built until whatever was left of him had to crack wide open. Agony seared him. How could he hurt this much without a body? He curled the body he didn’t have into a ball, determined not to cry out again.

  “Sorry. I’m sorry.” The lion’s words were a breathy whisper, but it was the first the beast had spoken since the vampire attack.

  Jeremiah hunted for something to say, but words slipped away, lost in a haze of knives and needles scoring his flesh. At least hang
ing onto consciousness had moved to a distant back burner. Pain was everything. Throbbing, jabbing, burning, excruciating. His vision hazed, first red then black and gray.

  Reality smacked him hard. No one could hurt this much and still live.

  I can’t give up. I can’t.

  He inhaled a jagged breath, edged with what felt like glass shards scoring throat and lungs. Blowing it out, he did it again. The universe narrowed to each breath. As long as he was still breathing, he wasn’t dead.

  If it wouldn’t have sent his pain through the ceiling, he’d have laughed. The harsh, bitter bursts would have damn near done him in. Time passed—a little or a lot. Impossible to tell.

  Finally, a breath wasn’t quite as painful. He thought he was imagining it, that something critical had finally broken beyond redemption, and he was losing ground to the battle raging through the lion’s body.

  The next breath was easier still. He latched onto a slender thread of hope. When he reached for his magic to shape telepathy, it didn’t exactly leap to his command, but it was there.

  “Sorry for what?” he croaked, remembering the lion’s apology.

  “Vampires. I forgot.”

  “Forgot what?” Jeremiah was confused.

  The beast panted, breath sounds rough as it fought to communicate. “Master vampires, old ones, carry venom.” A bevy of pants drowned out its next words.

  Jeremiah breathed deeper, his first almost-pain-free breath in what felt like forever. “Vamps don’t need poison. They mesmerize their prey.”

  “Different,” the lion rasped. “That’s mental coercion. This is an actual toxin, but only for magic-wielders.”

  “But why?”

  A muted whuffling roar heartened Jeremiah. The lion was recovering. “We hunted them. They needed a way to immobilize us.”

  Jeremiah’s mind was returning to his control rather than scattering unrelated bits of data willy-nilly. He culled through memories of vampires, but he’d always given them a wide berth.

  “Most of this happened prior to your birth,” the lion inserted.